I participated in Birthstone Books Covers for the first time in August, and now I’m hooked! Leslie at Books Are the New Black hosts this fun monthly meme — and since I love anything related to spotlighting amazing book covers, I just had to jump in.
The rules are simple:
Mention the creator (Leslie @Books Are The New Black ) and link back so she can see your post! Pick 5+ book covers that match the current month’s Birthstone. Have fun!
May’s birthstone is emerald. I love a vibrant green!
Emerald, the birthstone for May, has been beloved for millennia, evoking rebirth and renewal. Widely regarded as the definition of green, emerald is the perfect color for spring. From the poetic description of Ireland as “the Emerald isle” to the vibrant green of the famed gemstone itself—the May birthstone emerald has captured hearts and minds through the ages.
Variations of this rich green color suggest soothing, lush gardens. Legend has it that emerald has the power to make its wearer more intelligent and quick-witted, and it was once believed to cure diseases like cholera and malaria. Today, it’s the gemstone given for the 20th and 35th wedding anniversaries.
Earlier in the week, I shared a post with my list of books for the newest Classics Club Spin challenge (see it here), and today, this spin’s number was announced. (For those keeping track, it’s CCSpin #44, and for me personally, #16!)
Hosted by The Classics Club blog, the Classics Club Spin is a reading adventure where participants come up with a list of classics they’d like to read, number them 1 to 20, and then read the book that corresponds to the “spin” number that comes up.
For CCSpin #44, the lucky number is:
And that means I’ll be reading:
Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne du Maurier Published 1941
Synopsis:
Bored and restless in London’s Restoration Court, Lady Dona escapes into the British countryside with her restlessness and thirst for adventure as her only guides. Eventually Dona lands in remote Navron, looking for peace of mind in its solitary woods and hidden creeks. She finds the passion her spirit craves in the love of a daring French pirate who is being hunted by all of Cornwall. Together, they embark upon a quest rife with danger and glory, one which bestows upon Dona the ultimate choice: sacrifice her lover to certain death or risk her own life to save him.
And here’s a synopsis from another edition:
A lady bound by duty. A pirate who lives by desire. Together, they risk everything in a historical romance of freedom, danger, and forbidden love.
Restless in London’s rigid society, Lady Dona St. Columb escapes to the Cornish coast. There, shadowed creeks conceal a daring French privateer who offers the adventure she craves. Their secret encounters unfold in a world of stolen passion, dangerous choices, and the intoxicating pull of a gothic love story that defies every convention.
I’m excited! I’ve had a whole slew of Daphne du Maurier books on my TBR for what feels like ages, and I’m happy to have a push to actually get started. To be honest, I hadn’t looked into the plot of Frenchman’s Creek at all before today… and learning that it’s a pirate story makes me even more eager to read it.
What do you think of my spin result this time around?
I’ll be back to share my thoughts before July 5th!
Are you participating in this Classics Club Spin? If so, what book will you be reading?
Here’s my list of 20 titles for Classics Club Spin #44:
The House on the Strand by Daphne DuMaurier
Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir by R. A. Dick
This Rough Magic by Mary Stewart
The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
White Fang by Jack London
Anna and Her Daughters by D. E. Stevenson
Pied Piper by Nevil Shute
Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne DuMaurier
Pat of Silver Bush by L. M. Montgomery
Peony by Pearl Buck
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
Frederica by Georgette Heyer
The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham
Tevye the Dairymanand Motl the Cantor’s Son by Sholem Aleichem
Hosted by The Classics Club blog, the Classics Club Spin is a reading adventure where participants come up with a list of classics they’d like to read, number them 1 to 20, and then read the book that corresponds to the “spin” number that comes up. This will be the Classics Club’s spin #44, and my 16th time participating!
Here are the dates and guidelines from the host blog:
On Sunday 17th May we’ll post a number from 1 through 20. The challenge is to read whatever book falls under that number on your Spin List by the 5th July, 2026.
We’ll check in on the 5th July to see who made it the whole way and finished their spin book!
What’s Next?
Go to your blog.
Pick twenty books that you’ve got left to read from your Classics Club List.
Post that list, numbered 1-20, on your blog before Sunday 17th May 2026.
We’ll announce a number from 1-20.
Read that book by 5th July.
I’ve become hooked on exploring 20th century fiction, so that’s how I’ve focused my list. Where will the spin take me this time? We’ll find out in a few days!
Here’s my list of 20 classics for the next Classics Club Spin:
The House on the Strand by Daphne DuMaurier
Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir by R. A. Dick
This Rough Magic by Mary Stewart
The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
White Fang by Jack London
Anna and Her Daughters by D. E. Stevenson
Pied Piper by Nevil Shute
Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne DuMaurier
Pat of Silver Bush by L. M. Montgomery
Peony by Pearl Buck
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
Frederica by Georgette Heyer
The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham
Tevye the Dairymanand Motl the Cantor’s Son by Sholem Aleichem
Queen Lucia by E. F. Benson
Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon
Under the Rainbow by Susan Scarlett
Wish me luck! I’ll be back on May 17th to reveal my spin result!
I participated in Birthstone Books Covers for the first time in August, and now I’m hooked! Leslie at Books Are the New Black hosts this fun monthly meme — and since I love anything related to spotlighting amazing book covers, I just had to jump in.
The rules are simple:
Mention the creator (Leslie @Books Are The New Black ) and link back so she can see your post! Pick 5+ book covers that match the current month’s Birthstone. HAVE FUN!
April’s birthstone is diamond, and who doesn’t love a little bling?
Diamond forms under high temperature and pressure conditions that exist only about 100 miles beneath the earth’s surface. Diamond’s carbon atoms are bonded in essentially the same way in all directions. Another mineral, graphite, also contains only carbon, but its formation process and crystal structure are very different. Graphite is so soft that you can write with it, while diamond is so hard that you can only scratch it with another diamond.
Also worth noting: Diamond is the April birthstone, but also the gem that marks the 60th and 75th wedding anniversaries.
A few more diamonds (via Pinterest):
Onward to the books!
Diamond is a tricky one to find in terms of color covers… so I looked for either diamond-like cover colors or covers with actual diamonds on them!
Do you have any favorite diamond book covers to share?
It’s nice to wake up to something positive in my inbox once in a while… and this week, I received not one, but two emails informing me that I’d won Goodreads Giveaways! I’m happy about both books — I’ll be hovering around my mailbox waiting for them to arrive sometime in the next few weeks.
Meanwhile, here’s a peek at what I’m waiting for. First, I found out I’d won:
The Foursome by Christina Baker Kline Release date: May 12, 2026
Synopsis:
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Christina Baker Kline comes a boldly original reimagining of an astonishing true two sisters in nineteenth-century North Carolina—Kline’s own distant relatives—who married world-famous conjoined twins from Siam.
When Chang and Eng Bunker arrive in Wilkes County in 1839, they’re not just a curiosity—they’re a sensation. Everyone is eager to learn whether the salacious rumors about them are true. Within months, the twins have opened a general store, bought land, and begun building a plantation. Now, word has it, they’re looking for wives—and in a place that thrives on gossip and legacy, their ambitions set the community on edge.
Sarah and Adelaide Yates, daughters of a once-prominent local family brought low by scandal, are drawn into their orbit. Bold, beautiful Addie sees in the twins’ fame a chance to reclaim her future. Sallie, quiet and observant, isn’t so sure. When the twins’ lives become entangled with theirs, they must navigate loyalty, longing, and identity in a world where everything—including race, class, and gender—is rigidly defined.
Spanning five decades and unfolding against the backdrop of a fractured nation hurtling toward war, The Foursome is both intimate and a story of love and constraint, identity and reinvention. With piercing insight and emotional precision, Kline brings to life a forgotten chapter of American history and the complex, boundary-defying marriages at its center.
I’m so looking forward to reading this book! I loved this author’s 2020 novel The Exiles. I’ve actually read a different novel about the same historical figures (Chang and Eng by Darin Strauss, published 2020). It’ll be interesting to compare the two!
My second giveaway book is:
Destination Funeral by Paige Harbison Release date: July 21, 2026
Synopsis:
Four friends. One funeral. An endless Saturday.
When Babe—the complicated, magnetic matriarch of their teenage summers—dies, four estranged friends return to sleepy Mercy Island, a storm-swept stretch of coastal Georgia, summoned by the reading of her will.
Didion expects nothing more than an awkward visit with her sister and, maybe, a sundrenched funeral attended by beer-soaked locals. Instead, she arrives at the timeworn pink house to find the friends she never thought she’d see again—along with the tensions, attractions, and unfinished business that once bound them together and blew them apart.
What should be a brief weekend of small talk quickly unravels. Because the next morning, it’s Saturday again. And again. And again.
Trapped in a time loop with no end and no instructions, they’re forced to confront the betrayals, breakups, and buried truths that shattered them ten years ago. Something on the island isn’t ready to let them go—and if they can’t find a way to fix things, it may never let them leave.
I love this author’s 2025 novel, The Other Side of Now, and I’m so eager to read this new one!
Two very different books… and I’m excited for both!
What do you think? Would you read either of these?
And speaking of giveaways… do you tend to enter Goodreads Giveaways? Have you ever won a giveaway for a book you were dying to read?
I participated in Birthstone Books Covers for the first time in August, and now I’m hooked! Leslie at Books Are the New Black hosts this fun monthly meme — and since I love anything related to spotlighting amazing book covers, I just had to jump in.
The rules are simple:
Mention the creator (Leslie @Books Are The New Black ) and link back so she can see your post! Pick 5+ book covers that match the current month’s Birthstone. HAVE FUN!
Aquamarine is the blue to green-blue gemstone variety of beryl. It is the birthstone for March. The name aquamarine comes from two Latin words aqua marinus meaning “water of the sea”. The color comes from trace amounts of iron in the stone. Aquamarine is typically greenish blue in nature, so it is heat treated to remove the yellow component, and to produce a true-blue color. Brazil is the largest producer of aquamarine, but fine quality stones can be found around the world.
I participated in Birthstone Books Covers for the first time in August, and now I’m hooked! Leslie at Books Are the New Black hosts this fun monthly meme — and since I love anything related to spotlighting amazing book covers, I just had to jump in.
The rules are simple:
Mention the creator (Leslie @Books Are The New Black ) and link back so she can see your post! Pick 5+ book covers that match the current month’s Birthstone. HAVE FUN!
Amethysts are among my favorite gems, although — alas — I don’t believe I actually have any amethyst jewelry. The color is so pretty!
Amethyst was prized by ancient civilizations and was closely associated with spirituality, faith, and wisdom. The color purple has long been associated with royalty and the aristocracy. It is the birthstone for February. The color of amethyst ranges from light to intense purple. The lighter lilac or lavender variety is often called Rose de France amethyst. The most prized amethyst is transparent and exhibits an intense, uniform, purple color with red flashes.
Earlier in the week, I shared a post with my list of books for the newest Classics Club Spin challenge (see it here), and today, this spin’s number was announced. (For those keeping track, it’s CCSpin #43, and for me personally, #15!)
Hosted by The Classics Club blog, the Classics Club Spin is a reading adventure where participants come up with a list of classics they’d like to read, number them 1 to 20, and then read the book that corresponds to the “spin” number that comes up.
For CCSpin #43, the lucky number is:
And that means I’ll be reading:
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith Published 1948
Synopsis:
I Capture the Castle tells the story of seventeen-year-old Cassandra Mortmain and her family, who live in not-so-genteel poverty in a ramshackle old English castle. Here she strives, over six turbulent months, to hone her writing skills. She fills three notebooks with sharply funny yet poignant entries. Her journals candidly chronicle the great changes that take place within the castle’s walls and her own first descent into love. By the time she pens her final entry, she has “captured the castle”– and the heart of the reader– in one of literature’s most enchanting entertainments.
And here’s the synopsis from the hardcover deluxe edition released in 2017 from Wednesday Books:
Seventeen-year-old Cassandra Mortmain and her family may live in a ramshackle old English castle, but that’s about as romantic as her life gets. While her beautiful older sister, Rose, longs to live in a Jane Austen novel, Cassandra knows that meeting an eligible man to marry isn’t in either of their futures when their home is crumbling and they have to sell their furniture for food. So Cassandra instead strives to hone her writing skills in her journals. Until one day when their new landlords move in, which include two (very handsome) sons, and the lives of the Mortmain sisters change forever.
Finally! I’ve had I Capture the Castle on my to-read list for ages, and it’s been on my spin lists since the very first time I participated. I own a battered old paperback edition, and a few years ago I also picked up the hardcover deluxe edition:
Why has it taken me so long to read this book? No idea… except once I started including it on my spin lists, I’ve just been waiting for its turn to come around. And now it has!
I’m very happy with this spin! I’m looking forward to starting I Capture the Castle — probably a bit later this month. The deadline to finish this spin book is March 29th, which gives me plenty of time. I’ll be back with my reaction before then.
What do you think of my spin result this time around?
There’s a movie adaptation of I Capture the Castle from 2003 — so assuming I can find it to stream, I’ll plan to watch it before the end of March as well!
PS – Did you know… I Capture the Castle was Dodie Smith’s first novel, but she’s perhaps best known as the author of The Hundred and One Dalmatians!
Here’s my list of 20 titles for Classics Club Spin #43:
The House on the Strand by Daphne DuMaurier
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir by R. A. Dick
This Rough Magic by Mary Stewart
The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
White Fang by Jack London
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne DuMaurier
Pat of Silver Bush by L. M. Montgomery
Peony by Pearl Buck
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
Frederica by Georgette Heyer
The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham
Tevye the Dairymanand Motl the Cantor’s Son by Sholem Aleichem
Hosted by The Classics Club blog, the Classics Club Spin is a reading adventure where participants come up with a list of classics they’d like to read, number them 1 to 20, and then read the book that corresponds to the “spin” number that comes up. This will be the Classics Club’s spin #43, and my 15th time participating!
Here are the dates and guidelines from the host blog:
On Sunday 8th February we’ll post a number from 1 through 20. The challenge is to read whatever book falls under that number on your Spin List by the 29th March, 2026.
We’ll check in on the 29th March to see who made it the whole way and finished their spin book!
What’s Next?
Go to your blog.
Pick twenty books that you’ve got left to read from your Classics Club List.
Post that list, numbered 1-20, on your blog before Sunday 8th February 2026.
We’ll announce a number from 1-20.
Read that book by 29th March.
I’ve become hooked on exploring 20th century fiction, so my list mainly leans in that direction… with one or two others thrown into the mix as well. Where will the spin take me this time? We’ll find out in a few days!
Here’s my list of 20 classics for the next Classics Club Spin:
The House on the Strand by Daphne DuMaurier
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir by R. A. Dick
This Rough Magic by Mary Stewart
The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
White Fang by Jack London
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne DuMaurier
Pat of Silver Bush by L. M. Montgomery
Peony by Pearl Buck
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
Frederica by Georgette Heyer
The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham
Tevye the Dairymanand Motl the Cantor’s Son by Sholem Aleichem
Queen Lucia by E. F. Benson
Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon
Under the Rainbow by Susan Scarlett
Wish me luck! I’ll be back on February 8th to reveal my spin result!
I participated in Birthstone Books Covers for the first time in August, and now I’m hooked! Leslie at Books Are the New Black hosts this fun monthly meme — and since I love anything related to spotlighting amazing book covers, I just had to jump in.
The rules are simple:
Mention the creator (Leslie @ Books Are The New Black ) and link back so she can see your post! Pick 5+ book covers that match the current month’s Birthstone. HAVE FUN!
January is my daughter’s birth month, so I’ve been buying her garnet-colored gifts all her life! I must say, though, that I’ve never given her a book with a garnet cover! Clearly a major oversight!
According to Thomas Michael Jewelry:
Garnet is January’s birthstone. Garnets symbolize eternal friendship, loyalty and a light heart. There is evidence of garnet jewelry found in Bronze age burials in Eastern Europe. Garnet jewelry has been discovered in ancient Egypt and Sumeria. Garnets were treasured in jewelry by the Greek and Roman cultures as well as Pre-Columbian Aztec and Native American cultures. In Medieval times, garnets were thought to possess medicinal powers and were thought to protect one from poisons, wounds and bad dreams. They were thought to relieve fevers, hemorrhages and inflammatory diseases.
Samples of garnet jewelry:
Found on Pinterest…
Onward to the books!
Garnets! Garnets everywhere!
Or at least, on two Outlander series book covers, which makes me very happy.
But I suppose I should include some non-Outlander books too… so here are a few more with hints of garnet that I found on my shelves:
Do you have any favorite garnet book covers to share?
Bookshelf Fantasies 